Vindicated by Bella Klaus

Chapter Two

For the next several minutes, I stood at the other side of the daybed, using it as a barrier between myself and Grog until Fenrir mustered up enough strength to strike. Sweat poured down my brow, and every limb on my body trembled with the force of my heat.

The shaman knelt on the floor, twitching and cursing from my attack. I itched to charge at him with both hands shifted into claws, but my wolf panted and prowled with the urge to take control.

Grog staggered to his feet and released his grip around where I’d sliced his neck. “There.” His eye sockets glowed with magic. “I’ve stemmed the flow with my magic. This time, I will wait for the heat to consume your mind before making my next move.”

My wolf pushed herself to the surface and whined to be set free, but I wrestled her down. The heat had gotten to her the worst, and she was consumed with the instinct to mate.

Grog edged toward me, his eyes burning with hatred. “If Marchosias hadn’t told me your consent was necessary for the mating ritual, I would have taken you already.”

I forced a laugh. “Fine words, coming from someone as skittish—”

Fenrir pushed himself off the wall and tore the crossbow bolt from his chest, making my breath catch. Blood flowed from his wound only for it to seal and the red liquid sank into his skin. He staggered to the edge of the wards, his eyes crackling with white fury.

Grog’s brows furrowed, and it looked like he was about to glance over his shoulder but I hissed as a distraction. His eyes snapped back to me.

“I’ll never submit to you,” I spat. “Not even if this heat tortures me to death.”

The shaman grinned. “I am a patient man, and the barrier keeping us here is strong. When the heat takes control, you’ll be begging me for a hard pounding. As soon as I’ve impregnated you, Marchosias’ soul will rise from Hell and inhabit the vessel.”

My nostrils flared. “You’d condemn the world just so you can be a shifter?”

He puffed out his chest and ran both hands down his beard. “Better than that. Marchosias offered me the position of his High Shaman.”

“You can’t be a shifter and a shaman,” I spat.

“He’s letting me keep my magic.” Grog waggled a finger. “And I will rule at his side.”

Fenrir placed both hands on the wards, spreading magic across the invisible barrier, sending a ripple of power through the air. My wolf’s growls grated across my eardrums. With a deep shudder, I wrapped my arms around my middle, trying to hold together my human form.

Grog shuddered. “What’s that?”

“Maybe you’ve been rolling in fleas?” I forced my gaze away from Fenrir.

Another attack of heat burned through my veins, making my insides spasm. I clutched my arms around my middle, curled my legs toward my chest, and groaned.

“Lydia,” Fenrir snarled.

Grog turned around, raising both arms in a parody of victory. “You can’t beat my wards. They’re tied to my life force.”

“Is that right?” I asked through clenched teeth.

He cast me a dismissive glance. “Marchosias has given me eternal life.”

Despair twisted through my gut, mingling with the agony of my heat. How on earth could I break out of wards tied to the life of an immortal?

My wolf snapped and snarled and reared up with a force so strong that I felt my skin itch. Grinding my teeth, I pushed down on her with all my power. She thought Grog was someone like her and couldn’t fathom that he could be dangerous.

The air trembled with Fenrir’s magic, which felt like the crackle of electricity lashing at my skin. I darted my gaze to where he stood at the edge of the wards, his face contorted with fury. Whatever he was saying to Grog was muffled by a sound barrier, but I imagined that he was threatening the shaman’s life.

The sweat on my skin sizzled as the room felt like standing too close to the stove of a sauna. Grog’s wards looked like they weren’t about to fall, and I needed to act now, while his back was turned.

“Give me some of your fire,”I said to my wolf.

She stopped jumping and paused with her head cocked to one side. It was her way of asking what I intended to do with it.

“I want to show him that we’re worthy of being his mate.”My insides cringed at the obvious lie, but I was trying to save both our lives.

My wolf sat on her haunches, raised her head and blew out a plume of flames. I channeled the magic through my palms, just as Fenrir had once done when my wolf was in his lands, and I coated them with flames.

“Grog?” I asked.

“What?” he replied without turning around.

“Come here.”

He scoffed. “You can fool me once, girl. Never twice.”

I shuffled to the edge of the daybed, and dropped down to my knees. The flames extinguished, making me groan, but I crawled across the floor on my belly to where he stood at the edge of the wards.

Fenrir stared down at me, his lips parting, his brow furrowing into a frown. Perhaps he was wondering what I was doing.

“Can you hear me?”I asked him through our link.

When he still didn’t answer, my heart plummeted. Grog must have used a form of magic similar to the one he had employed when suppressing my wolf. As the shaman of a large pack, he would have had years to perfect his craft.

Pain flashed through my insides like sheet lightning, making me clench my teeth. I pulled myself across the floor with my forearms, my legs dragging uselessly behind me.

“The Great Fenrisúlfr,” Grog said, his voice dripping with contempt. “I prayed to you day and night to grant me a wolf, a mate, some fucking respect, but you never once answered my pleas. Now, I’m going to take your woman while you watch.”

“Touch Lydia, and I’ll make you suffer centuries of pain,” Fenrir roared.

My jaw clenched. Grog was going to get what was coming to him. Right now. I reached his scrawny legs, wrapped my hands around his bony ankles and pushed my wolf’s magic through my hands. Flames filled my palms, setting the oil on his skin alight.

Grog jumped aside, staring down at me through eyes wide with shock. “What the fuck?”

I launched myself backward and hissed through my teeth, “The only thing Fenrir will watch is your dirty carcass going up in flames.”

He dropped his staff and tried to douse the flames with the palms of his hands, but his movements only made everything worse.

With a scream, the shaman flailed his legs, trying to put out the fire, but it only stoked the flames. Flames that spread up his legs, filling the air with the scent of burned hair, burned flesh, and the burned fabric of his loincloth.

I crawled on my belly toward the wooden staff, hoping its destruction would end his magic. Wrapping my hands around its handle, I channeled as much of my wolf’s power as she would allow into the wood.

Her anguished howl filled my ears. I cringed at having deceived her but I continued burning the staff until it was brittle enough to snap in two.

A burned and blackened Grog rushed to my side, filling my nostrils with the stench of charred flesh. He snatched the smoldering top half of his staff from my hands. “What have you done?”

The floor shook with the might of Fenrir’s fury.

My wolf threw herself at the barrier that separated our souls, snarling, snapping, growling at me to relinquish control.

I shoved her down once more and glowered into the shaman’s scorched face. “Go back to Marchosias and tell him I won’t be his broodmare.”

“You’re ruining everything.” Grog pulled back his foot and kicked me in the gut.

Pain radiated through my insides, but it was nothing compared to the agony of my heat. I grabbed at his ankle again, this time turning my hands into claws and digging them into his flesh.

Fenrir’s roar sent a cold blast of fury across my skin, giving me the drive to continue fighting.

Grog slammed the head of his staff over my skull. “Let go of me, you feral bitch.”

Wincing, I tore at the shaman’s burned skin.

“You’ll pay for this,” Fenrir roared.

The wards splintered. Shards of power rained down on me like invisible pieces of broken glass and sliced across my skin. Shuddering through the sensation of being cut with hundreds of invisible blades, I twisted Grog’s foot.

He fell onto his back with a scream and thrashed from side to side. “Stop this,” he yelled. “It hurts.”

Fenrir rushed up behind Grog and dropped down, his knees landing on the smaller man’s torso. The shaman reared up with a pained scream, his eyes wide.

“Bastard.” He grabbed Grog’s head with both hands, tore it from his shoulders, and tossed it to the other side of the room.

My heart soared, even though my wolf’s stomach plummeted with shock. Blood poured from the shaman’s neck and pooled across the floor, reaching my legs. I was about to shuffle back, but a hard contraction seized my insides, making me cry out.

Fenrir turned from the twitching corpse to me. His pupils were no longer an incandescent white, but his skin was paler than I’d ever seen it, and his lips trembled.

“Lydia.” His voice broke. “I should have protected you.”

Grimacing, I shook my head. This wasn’t Fenrir’s fault.

Fenrir slipped his hand beneath my body, turned me onto my back, and pulled me to his chest.

His touch was like being immersed in a cool bath, taking away the intensity of the heat. I inhaled his earthy scent, letting it wash through my senses. My wolf calmed, and some of the madness clouding both our minds faded. I exhaled my relief in an outward breath and clung to Fenrir’s powerful body.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured into my hair.

“That bastard shot you,” I said through clenched teeth. “The poison was supposed to keep you unconscious for at least an hour, but you fought through it to save me.”

“I couldn’t leave you to the mercy of a powerful enemy.” He turned toward the half-burned corpse. “Who was that?”

“Who do you see?” I asked.

Fenrir turned back to me, his brow furrowed. “A man I’ve never met before.”

“That’s Grog,” I said. “The Norse pack’s shaman.”

Fenrir glanced down at the body once more. “Whatever magic he was using did not come from shamanism.”

I rested my head on his shoulder and exhaled a relieved breath. “That’s because he made a deal with Marchosias.”

He growled. “Another one?”

“Beowulf told Grog and Alpha Gundahar all about the deal he made with Marchosias,” I murmured. “When the Supernatural Council cursed Beowulf with impotence, Grog was ready to take his place.”

Fenrir snarled through his teeth. “Then we need to stop Marchosias.”

Had I said Fenrir’s presence calmed my heat? That had been a lie. My insides twisted like a wet cloth, and all the muscles of my body turned rigid. The sensations of lit dynamite fuses engulfed my nerves, which screamed for release. I threw my head back and cried.

“Lydia!”

“The heat.” My bones rattled so much that my teeth chattered. “It’s going to kill me if you don’t—”

Fenrir staggered to one side, and I nearly fell from his embrace. Wet, wheezing breaths filled the air. I cracked open an eye to find a headless white wolf standing behind him, its hackles raised. Blood seeped from its neck wound and colored its fur a deep red.

“Shit,” I hissed. “He’s shifted.”

“Fuck.”

My wolf’s head snapped up, and she ran around in confused circles. There was no time to tell if she was happy or horrified, because the white wolf reared up again and swiped at Fenrir with his claws.

“Stand down,” Fenrir roared.

Either the wolf couldn’t hear him, or he didn’t recognize Fenrir’s authority as the alpha, and he slashed from side to side, trying to reach for Fenrir’s neck.

“Put me down,” I said, my voice strained as the wolf continued his attack on Fenrir.

“No,” he snarled. “Marchosias is animating that body for a purpose. What if that thing wants to force itself on you?”

I opened my mouth to tell Fenrir that the ritual needed my consent, but it clicked shut. Why would I trust anything Grog had told me? Fenrir was right. I wasn’t going to let him get close to my body, no matter what.

“Bring me Grog’s head,” I said.

Fenrir landed a heavy kick on the wolf’s shoulder, making him flinch. With another blow, he cracked bone, and Grog’s headless wolf landed on the floor with a thud.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“If Grog’s head is operating that body, we need to destroy it.”

Fenrir slammed his foot on Grog’s ribs, filling my ears with several sickening cracks. Wincing, I clenched my teeth. Broken bones wouldn’t slow down an undead shaman powered by a demon like Marchosias.

After stamping on the wolf’s hind leg, Fenrir stalked across the room to where he’d thrown Grog’s head. It was the same creature I had chased through town. Almost hairless with an elongated snout, indigo-blue eyes, and long ears. He looked like a white version of my wolf.

Bile rose to the back of my throat, and I swallowed. It was no wonder she had gotten so riled by his presence.

Fenrir picked it up by its ears. “I’ll tear it into pieces and bury them in different places outside the wards.”

A shooting pain raced through my core, making my body go limp. “There’s no time,” I whispered. “You’ve got to fuck me.”

He frowned. “Lydia.”

“It’s the heat,” I said, voice wavering. “Do you remember how pained I was the night after the battle, when I collapsed?”

“Is it that bad?” he asked.

“Nearly.” I shuddered. “Only this time, I’m desperate to mate.”

His gaze turned to a headless wolf trying to rise on a leg that had been snapped in half. “Let me get you washed up.”

I grabbed his wrist. “Please, make me climax first.”

His eyes darkened, his nostrils flared, and his full lips parted. “Are you sure?”

Pain exploded across my belly, setting my every nerve ending alight. With a desperate moan, I clung to his chest and cried, “If you leave me unsatisfied any longer, I’ll die.”